The U.S. Military Is Struggling to Police Itself in Afghanistan

New photos show American soldiers posing with the body parts of Taliban suicide bombers.

An Afghan girl watches as U.S. soldiers move through her village. Reuters

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has apologized for grisly new photos
showing American soldiers posing with the body parts of Taliban suicide
bombers and promised that "anyone found responsible for this inhuman
conduct will be held accountable." If similar recent events are any
indication, those punishments will be a long time coming.

The
U.S.-led command in Afghanistan has been rocked by a series of missteps
in recent months, from the January release of videos showing Marines
urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters to the February report
that Korans had been burned at a sprawling American base in eastern
Afghanistan. To date, however, no officers or enlisted personnel have
been disciplined for their roles in the gaffes.

The
worst such incident occurred last month when Army Staff Sgt. Robert
Bales walked off his base in a small town in southern Afghanistan and
killed at least 17 civilians. Bales's attorneys say his actions may have
been motivated by an earlier brain injury but don't dispute his
culpability in the crimes. No one from Bales's unit--including the
commander of his small combat outpost in Kandahar--has yet been relieved
or otherwise punished, according to Army officials.

Spokesmen for
the Marines and Army point out that officers and enlisted personnel
could face punishments up to and including courts martial depending on
the results of the various probes into the incidents.

The
investigations into the Marine video have been completed, and a senior
Marine general in Quantico is currently weighing if any troops should be
disciplined, and how harshly. Col. Sean Gibson, a spokesman for the
Marines, said there was no timetable for a final determination.

The
two services' refusal to more quickly take action contrasts sharply
with the Navy, which has relieved dozens of senior officers of command
over the past 16 months for far smaller offenses. Last summer, for
example, Navy Capt. Eric Merrill was relieved of command after his ship
hit a buoy in the waters off Bahrain. At least 28 Navy officers have
lost their posts since January 2011, many while the investigations into
their behavior were still under way.

The U.S.-led military command
in Kabul has also fired some officers for comparatively minor missteps.
Last fall, Army Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller was removed from his post after
he criticized Afghan President Hamid Karzai and told Politico that the Karzai administration was "isolated from reality."

Fuller
lost his post almost immediately, with Gen. John Allen, the top Afghan
war commander, slamming him on the way out the door for making
"inappropriate public comments."

Navy Capt. John Kirby, a
spokesman for the U.S. command in Kabul, said the investigation into the
pictures published on Wednesday by theLos Angeles Times
was just getting under way and that "it would be premature to get ahead
of that process." The probes into the Kandahar shootings and Koran
burnings are also ongoing, military officials said, though the Koran
probe should be completed soon.

Speaking via e-mail, Kirby also
emphasized said that such gaffes have been carried by only a tiny
fraction of the U.S. forces serving in Afghanistan. Those troops, Kirby
said via e-mail, are notable for "the respect they show daily for Islam
and for the Afghan people, the courage under the fire they take almost
every day, and the humility with which they do it."

Still, Kirby
declined to answer questions about why no soldiers or Marines had yet
been disciplined for the Kandahar shootings, Taliban urination videos,
or Koran burnings, referring those queries to the individual military
services.

Spokesmen for the Army and Marines said no discplinary
measures would be taken until the internal probes had been completed.
The Navy, for its part, routinely removes officers from command while
such investigations are ongoing; in March, Cmdr. Jon Haydel was relieved
for "personal misconduct" even though the probe into his behavior
hadn't been completed.

Army spokesman George Wright referred a
question about the status of troops involved in the Koran burning back
to NATO, which had specifically refused to talk about it. Wright
confirmed that no one besides Bales has to date faced any disciplinary
proceedings in connection to the Kandahar shootings. In the Pentagon,
many officers believe that Bales's commanders bear some responsibility
for failing to put measures in place which would have prevented him from
leaving the base and carrying out his rampage.

Gibson, the Marine
spokesman, said there had been a pair of investigations into the
Taliban videos, one by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and one
within the Marine Corps itself. Gibson said Lt. Gen. Richard Mills was
reviewing the results and weighing whether to order further
investigation, courts martial, or lesser forms of reprimands. There is
also the chance, Gibson said, that Mills will opt for no punishment
whatsoever.

Either way, it could be weeks or months longer before
an answer comes. "The commanding general is considering his possible
courses of actions," Gibson said, "but no final decision has been made."

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Yochi Dreazen is writer-in-residence at the Center for a New American Security and a contributing editor for The Atlantic.